August 17th 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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This week in 1974 saw conflict once again descend upon Europe, with Turkey invading Cyprus for a second time, leading to it occupying 37% of the island's territory.

In response to this, Greece withdrew its forces from NATO's military command structure.

But there was, at least, a reward for harmony on the UK singles chart, with the Three Degrees hitting the summit, thanks to their evergreen charmer When Will I See You Again?

As we all know, the Three Degrees were long rumoured to have been the then Prince Charles' favourite band.

And Car 67 by Driver 67 was long reported to have been the Queen Mother's favourite song. 

However, I can shed no light upon what the then Queen's favourite music of choice was. One would hope, under the circumstances, that it was a certain band fronted by Freddie Mercury but who can know?

There was no matching sense of movement upon the accompanying LP chart, with Paul McCartney and Wings' Band on the Run retaining the Number One spot it had held for several weeks.

The Three Degrees may have been asking, "When will i see you again?" but a woman who'd had no doubt that, "We'll meet again," was back in the spotlight on August 17th, thanks to BBC One broadcasting The Vera Lynn Show. This was a mere five years before Pink Floyd sang, "Does anyone in here remember Vera Lynn?" I can only conclude Roger Waters must have either missed the show or he'd assumed that everyone had a very short memory.

It's another classic, as the Hulk finds himself in the exotic continent of Europe where he soon comes into conflict with the evil dictator Draxon.

Or does he?

As far as our hero's concerned, he just wants to get away from it all and hang out in the mountains where it's peaceful.

But can the Hulk refuse to come to the assistance of a crying child?

And just how do golems come into it all?

In the pages of Daredevil, a brand new super-villain's born when Foggy Nelson decides to fool Karen Page into thinking he's Daredevil, by hiring a costume and staging a fight between himself and the costumier, little realising the costumier's about to call himself the Gladiator and use the spinning blades he's now sporting on his wrists to do serious harm to our out-of-shape lawyer.

Meanwhile, the FF are fighting the Inhumans - and Black Bolt - while the Seeker invades the Baxter Building, believing the captive Dragon Man to be an escaped Inhuman who must be returned, at once, to the Great Refuge.

Spidey's on the trail of the Kingpin who's stolen a mysterious tablet from ESU.

But can our hero gatecrash the voluminous villain's lair without getting himself shot to pieces?

Or without getting tangled up in his own webbing?

In other news, Tony Stark's missiles keep failing.

There can be only one explanation.

The Mandarin

And that can mean only one course of action.

Attacking the Mandarin's castle.

In retrospect, every Mandarin story of my childhood seemed to involve someone attacking the Mandarin's castle.

But, once he's inside it, how's Iron Man going to survive the Eastern egomaniac's combination of bling and karate?

And crisis hits Asgard when Loki decides to wreck the land's equivalent of the Olympics by unleashing the Destroyer upon it.

Can even the combined warriors of that golden realm thwart such a being?

Odin clearly could. Therefore, I'm going to assume he's having one of his legendary power naps while all this is going on.

Each thinking the other to be a murderer and gangster, Shang-Chi and Spider-Man are coming to blows but it's not long before they realise they need to unite against the real villain of the piece. And that's Fu Manchu.

My memories of this week's Avengers tale are vague but I know it involves the Black Widow getting trapped in a machine which makes people hallucinate, with a subplot in which Hank Pym decides to try and revive the inert Dragon Man.

Somehow I can't help feeling that's a bad idea.

But, let's be honest, most of Hank Pym's ideas are bad ideas.

Especially the ones that involve him imbuing the spark of life into things.

To conclude our issue, Dr Strange and Baron Mordo are in conflict, when they should be helping each other halt the Living Tribunal's plan to eradicate all of humanity.